Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You

by Greg Gutfeld

  If you explained this to the cool, that their infatuation with government is actually harmful, even deadly, would they listen? Not on your life. Because it’s uncool not to believe in government. If there’s a hole in your life, you need to fill it with stuff. The government has stuff. Make the government give more stuff. Never mind that free stuff does nothing to encourage achievement or gain any kind of moral wisdom. It does the opposite. Do a search of lottery winners. The more you give to someone, the worse it gets.

  Meanwhile, the cool question, mock, and deride the things that actually work. Think about capitalism, which has done more for humanity than exercise, alcohol, and kitten videos combined. Somehow, the coolies who favor a one-size-fits-all, soulless government are the same ones who think capitalism dehumanizes people. They will say that not everyone has access to capitalism, but they all have access to government. It’s as though they skipped that integral step that makes life worth living. Something called “effort.” Capitalism works if you apply effort. And, to quote some comic I can’t remember: If you can’t make it here, you can’t make it anywhere. America is the easiest place on the planet to make a buck. Look at me for crying out loud. I’d be a fire hydrant anywhere else. (And I’d like it.)

  I’m not against welfare programs, I’m just against a welfare state. There is a difference. It’s like ice cream. It’s not a bad thing a few times a week, but try eating it every day. You are what you eat and the welfare state is the worst ice cream there is. Worse than Indian pudding.

  The cool push a way of life that only they can afford. As with the rock star who can do all the drugs he wants, it’s the groupies he did the drugs with that need to find a way home the next day as the rock star hops on his jet. Society lives in the wake of cool’s destructive policies.

  The American decline, which coincides with an ascendant government, is not the cool’s problem. It’s ours. And the only way to beat it is to beat them. Perhaps with a stick. Or something like a stick. I’ll leave that choice up to you. That’s what libertarians do.

  THE RISE OF THE FREE RADICAL

  So why do the cool prosper when they suck so bad? More important, how can we realign the universe so that the things that are really cool (i.e., what isn’t cool now) take precedence over the crap spawned by the coolerati?

  We need to redefine cool as “what allows you to do the things you want to do with the people you love and care about.” In America’s wildly successful epoch, that’s been hard work, decent moral values, a viciously badass military, a no-bullshit analysis of the world around us, and a desire to understand the world without the assistance of style editors and root-cause experts. Our current idolization of short talk show hosts has also yielded global dividends.

  So who are the truly cool? The truly cool are those who achieve greatness without giving a second thought to impressing others. It’s about doing things for the right reasons, usually unnoticed. True cool, in my book, is something that’s uniquely, and surprisingly, good. The elements that make up this murky nonspecific goodness include, but are not limited to:

  Honesty. You cannot be a liar, or a phony, and be cool. That’s why so many people who are described as cool often aren’t. Ever see a picture of a “cool actor” from before they were famous? Goofballs in scarves. That’s who they really are. Everything else is a lie. Simply put: If you have to try really hard to convince us, you’ve already lost.

  Fidelity to principle. It’s somebody who sticks to his guns, and is considered brave, in the course of daily events. He has a spine and it’s a pretty obvious one.

  Unpredictability that starts to make sense once you realize the person has a code. Remember when you first met someone and thought, “Wow, this person is odd. Why is he doing that?” Then over time, you find that his behavior isn’t erratic at all, that there is an internal consistency embedded in his behavior that explains every tic. Andrew Breitbart is the key example. If you didn’t know him, you thought he was bonkers. Once you became friends, every action was part of a complete point of view that made wonderful, perfect sense, and even explained his wildly esoteric “contacts” list.

  Persuasive correctness. It is one thing to be right, but it takes a real character to be right and explain why in simple, straightforward terms. And this sense of “rightness” transcends the left/right duopoly. It’s what makes the cool person a benefit to the country. Christ—we need more of these.

  The people who fit these criteria I call the Free Radicals. They embody these qualities, rebel against rebellion, are cool without being dishonest, and do what they know is right, even if it makes them look out of step. But they’re not. They’re the most interesting people we’ve got. The Free Radicals I admire are:

  Black conservatives: It’s not about black skin, it’s about thick skin. They could go one way and never face scorn. But instead they follow their brains and their hearts. They earn the scorn of white liberals, who hate them for pissing on their worldview, and the enmity of black liberals, who see them as traitors. God bless ’em and watch over them. They need it.

  Dana Perino. Seriously, answer this question: How does a ninety-pound farm girl get herself into the White House? And handle it with such ease? I’d say more but it might give her a bigger head, and she’d probably fall over. She’s already a human lollipop as is.

  Australia and New Zealand. Australia is pretty much America in the 1950s with better-looking women and uglier insects. I’m pretty sure they’ve fought alongside America in every conflict since World War I. Both Australia and New Zealand are frontiers, a few generations from a penal colony past, living on China’s lip, and still willing to say, “Go fuck yourself.” They are the great hidden bulwark against future threats. Think about it: If you were uncontrollable, England sent you to Australia. If you were uncontrollable there, Australia sent you to New Zealand. Deal with that, China.

  Reason magazine. The smartest magazine around. You want proof? Both me and Breitbart applied for jobs there, and both of us were turned down. I hold no grudges.

  The New York Police Department. You gotta wonder why Chicago has more homicides with one-third the people (which destroys the “New York’s reduction in crime is emblematic of the whole country” theory). These guys and gals, roughly 50 percent of whom are minorities, have ignored mountains of media criticism, while lowering crime 90 percent in twelve years. I’d say that 80 percent of the lives they saved are minorities. So while all those gripes from the left’s fever swamps continue to vomit forth, the NYPD continues to save more black and Hispanic babies. Yet, at Bill de Blasio’s inauguration, the chaplain for the Sanitation Department called the city a “plantation.” It’s over, people, when the chaplain for the Sanitation Department is taken seriously.

  Ambassador John Bolton. Thick glasses? Check. Goofy grin? Yep. A walrus mustache? Absolutely. The uncoolest guy on the planet, yet the only one willing to stand up to our planet’s tyrants. If President Obama had just 10 percent of the Bolton gene, I wouldn’t be worried most of my life.

  Bjørn Lomborg. He’s an environmentalist who strays from the bunch by being rational, thoughtful, and resistant to panic. He believes in global warming (a “lukewarmer,” if you will) but also knows the facts: that there are way worse threats out there, and by obsessing over the marginal consequences of global warming, greenies ignore threats that kill millions more poor people across the world. Plus, his name is Bjørn, and he’s not in ABBA.

  Killer whales. The coolest animal. They are not a fish, they are air-breathing, and they eat endangered species (polar bears). They remind me of me, with slightly better breath.

  Fracking. It’s not a person but a thing, and it’s a thing that’s driving environmentalists nuts. It’s actually “cleaner” energy (there is no such thing as “clean energy”—unless you count Adderall), and it’s robustly reviving economies in states across the country. It’s killing the left from two angles: They hate industry and despise anything that isn’t a renewable resource. Fracking is their
Antichrist. And my hero. It will help America survive the twenty-first century while Europe slides back into the nineteenth century.

  Straight couples. Right now they’re about as boring and uncool as a bread machine. But what makes them cool? They make gay people. Seriously, without straight couples, we’d have absolutely no gay people whatsoever. Well, we’d have no people whatsoever. So thank them for the human race.

  The overweight and out-of-shape. Clearly they’re busy with something else. And that’s the real reason why incredibly fit people are really uncool. If you can work out for hours a day and not be a pro athlete, then you’re running from something. I’m talking about me. As a jackass who worked out between two and three hours a day for at least a decade, I stopped when I discovered what a tool I’d been. I’m still a tool, but I’m a fat one, and I’m doing something with my life. Which is what a lot of fat, out-of-shape people are busy doing too. Look at Winston Churchill. Would you rather have that fat asshole or a trimmer Adolf Hitler, the vegetarian? No need to answer (I can’t hear you).

  Smokers. I don’t put this on the list because smoking happens to look cool (it does, if you happen to be handsome); it’s here because I do it. How much longer is anyone’s guess. I smoke no more than five cigs a day. If you think there’s something wrong with that, I’m willing to be wrong in your mind. Imbibing five of anything is only bad if whatever it is happens to be bigger than your fist.

  Broads. Not women. Broads. Brassy drinkers who swear and shoot from the hip and the lip. My favorite broad at the moment is Elizabeth MacDonald, a Fox Business news contributor. I’d like to share a bottle of Jack with her. And then go shoot things. Perhaps named Jack.

  Waiting tables. Note: I didn’t say waiters, because for every good waiter you get, there’s one who deserves to have his fingernails removed. But restaurant work is a must in any background. You blog? In the john? Who cares? Get out and wash dishes. It’s good for the soul. And you can stop and never do it again when you’re done.

  The military. It’s the last place on earth to be poisoned by the toxins of political correctness. Which is why it’s the only branch of government that works. Every veteran I’ve worked with is a total pro. It is true that showing up is 90 percent of life, but showing up on time is 100 percent. I suppose when you spend the past few years being shot at, I’m not that intimidating a sight to see in a control room. When I complain about the lighting, they give me a look that says, “How’d you’d like to see a latrine, head first?”

  Ramirez. In the world of political cartooning, not being a liberal makes you a leper. This guy is the Hispanic political cartoonist who happens to be staunchly conservative—about as common as a flying wildebeest. It’s easy to be a leftist with a crayon. All you have to do is draw a cloud and write REPUBLICAN BIGOTRY in it, and then sketch a kitten below it, with the words OUR NATION’S CHILDREN across it. Ramirez is way more talented than his peers, and he has to be, or they’d already have drummed him out of the profession. He draws better than all of them, which must really irk Garry Trudeau. (But everything irks Garry Trudeau. Primarily, one suspects, Garry Trudeau.)

  Hirsi Ali. She may be a woman, but she has more balls than a McDonald’s play pit. An outspoken critic of Muslim abuses toward women, Ayaan Hirsi Ali (she wrote the script for Theo van Gogh’s movie Submission, which ultimately led to his murder by Muslim supremacists) is targeted by hate groups, including al-Qaeda, who put her on its most recent hit list. They all want to kill her, and they very well may. But it doesn’t stop her. Balls. Luckily she can count on the left and women’s groups for support. If by support you mean disinterest.

  Iranian metal bands and Persian ravers. In America, if you want quick cool cachet, just get into music. Learn an instrument, grow your hair long, and join a band. Or if you’re lazy, just become a modern deejay—you’ll probably still get laid. But try doing all of that in countries where the added edge is that you could die for singing. There’s something wonderful about kids going out and doing something totally ridiculous, disposable, and fun—when they know it could cost them their lives. All Western kids risk is STD. These kids risk being DOA.

  Fossil fuels. Talk about the ultimate recycling: We are running our planes, trains, and automobiles on dead dinosaurs. Christ, how can you not love that idea? It still blows my mind that it’s possible (the same way I guess that Insane Clown Posse were transfixed by magnets), and I find it insanely hypocritical that environmentalists reject this truly renewable fuel (true, it’s only renewed once, but that’s a start). Thanks, dinosaur fossils—you may never know how many people you’ve helped by being dead. The world essentially runs on Apatosaurus farts. And we’re supposed to be ashamed of that?

  Japan. I’m pretty sure it’s the size of Connecticut, but it acts like it has the power of Texas. Which it does. This place stands up to China more than the hall monitor in the White House. The only reason they don’t openly mock us for our weakness is that they’re just too damn polite. Plus, they all know karate. I saw it in a movie.

  Professional wrestling. Fake violence is actually way better than real violence. It’s true. These are male soap operas, or “anglo novellas,” where you can look at sweaty muscular men in tights and not worry about your website browsing history.

  Legal immigrants. These are the guys who didn’t cut the line. The ones who waited. Come on in and have a seat. You deserve it. Sorry we treat you worse than your illegal brethren. We’re a confused nation!

  A snub nose .38. It’s what you call a “force multiplier,” as noted in Taxi Driver. It fits in your sock, but don’t put it there—that’s illegal. (Plus, you’ll get blisters!) It’s really snug in all legal, commercial holsters. It never jams. Best part: one or two .38 rounds will still a rapist’s ambition, guaranteed. The best friend that a woman, a gay, a minority businessman in a rough neighborhood could ever have, even if liberal mayors hate them (as they’re surrounded by a bevy of packing behemoths).

  Truman Capote. A five-foot-two chubby gay fights his way out of the South and writes In Cold Blood. A fantastic controller of language who seemed bemused by his own orientation. Probably one of the most interesting conservatives America has ever produced. The size of a college fridge, he took a world of shit for never giving in and becoming a lefty so Gore Vidal might like him. Of Jack Kerouac—the writer who spills off the lips of wannabe cool kids when asked who they read—Capote said, “That’s not writing, that’s typing.” Sort of a gay male Dana Perino. Maybe a little taller.

  Governor Mike Huckabee. Kinda funny that a Southern hillbilly Bible thumper now thumps bass with all these rock legends. Watching him thunka-thunk that bass, in his suit, to me is priceless. Plus he lets me take the leftovers from his green room. The food, I mean.

  Monks. I lived in a monastery for a week, and you can’t walk away from that with the intent of making the whole experience sound precious. It wasn’t. It was brutally boring. I cannot live without input from people, electronics, alcohol. The monks are a different sort. It’s not that they don’t care; they just don’t care for stuff. They are proof that you can live in the sixteenth century without demanding that everyone else do the same. Certain religions can take a page from that. Not that I’m naming any, of course.

  Old ladies. They’re not always wrinkled totems of wisdom. Some can be a pain in the ass. Especially the one who used to live downstairs from me who took up the bassoon. I just like old ladies because they made it this far. They deserve the planet’s attendance award. This is an unforgiving hell, and it never ever gets better. How they know that, and still press on, gives hope to misanthropes like myself.

  Mark E. Smith. He’s the lead singer of the long-running psycho-rock band the Fall. Nearly every record bristles with repetitive originality, and an insanity that comes from one place—Mark. But I became a lifelong fan when I came across an interview he did where the music journalist pressed him on his politics and why he tended to abhor the liberalism that other bands embrace. Smith’s accent is
thick, but I remember the gist of this response. “Why don’t terrorists bomb colleges? Because they’d kill their mates.” He made the simple link between the pernicious romance with fascism you find among intellectuals, and terror—something other pop singers and musicians never do. That’s cool. And smart. I can almost forgive him for using his middle initial.

  1950s sports figures. They were so much cooler because they just came and played. Compare a Willie Mays to a bum like Barry Bonds. Yes, I have a personal vendetta against Bonds—he used to sit behind me in Spanish class in high school and kick my chair for answers to quizzes, but I’d feel the same about the schmuck regardless. Back then playing sports was just enough. You didn’t need to own a nightclub or have a fleet of cars or showcase your tacky house on horrible television shows. You just did your thing and thanked God that you did something way more fun than any other thing you could be doing. Plus, they rarely got arrested. At least not for murder.

  My wife. She is here, of course, to keep me in good spirits. But we met in Portugal, we lived in London, and she came to America from Moscow and worked her butt off. She’s the ultimate immigrant, one who stood in line, filled out the forms, and didn’t complain. She also embraces America’s free markets and potential for achievement, perhaps because she came from a place that had none of that. By the way, I should put all Russians alongside her—at least the ones I’ve met. They’re more capitalist than the capitalists who are born here, and they have no illusions about socialism. Don’t mess with them. There’s a reason the Wehrmacht got only as far as Stalingrad.